Radiation in Gastroenterology

The benefit of radiation is immense in the field of gastroenterology. Radiation is used daily in different gastrointestinal imaging and diag-nostic and therapeutic interventional procedures. Radiotherapy is one of the primary modalities of treatment of gastrointestinal malignan-cies. There are various modalities of radiotherapy. Radiotherapy can injure malignant cells by directly damaging DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids and indirectly by forming free radicals. External beam radia-tion, internal beam radiation and radio-isotope therapy are the major ways of delivering radiation to the malignant tissue. Radiation can also cause inflammation, fibrosis, organ dysfunction, and malignancy. Pa-tients with repeated exposure to radiation for diagnostic imaging and therapeutic procedures are at slightly increased risk of malignancy. Gastrointestinal endoscopists performing fluoroscopy-guided proce-dures are also at increased risk of malignancy and cataract formation. The radiological protection society recommends certain preventive and protective measures to avoid side effects of radiation. Gastrointes-tinal complications related to radiation therapy for oncologic process-es, and exposure risks for patients and health care providers involved in diagnostic or therapeutic imaging will be discussed in this review.